She Started With One Room. Soon, Gathern Captured 44% of Saudi Tourism

While Latifah Altamimi was studying in the US in 2016 at Wright State University in Ohio, she noticed her neighbor had a lot of roommates. Airbnb wasn’t really prevalent in her native Saudi Arabia. 

Finally building up the courage to ask, her neighbor explained he was subletting a room via Airbnb, introducing Latifah firsthand to peer-to-peer rentals. At the same time, Latifah had been discovering the basic tenets of entrepreneurship — halfway through her degree, she’d read over a hundred books in a year on building business and creating growth. So much so, she was on the verge of dropping out of her degree to start a business. 

“I’d been reading all these books and learning about the Silicon Valley and the startup ecosystem, and I thought, ‘We don’t have this in Saudi Arabia’,” Latifah remembers. Combining these two, she spent seven hours – “the longest call of my life,” she says – on the phone with her co-founder, Eman Alsuwailem, planning out the launch of their own business. And finally, she finished her degree and came home into the unknown.

What she found surprised her.

“I’d been out of the country for five years, and when I came back [in 2017], I realized we were at the beginning of a new Silicon Valley in this region,” Latifah said. “I applied for the Prince Mohammed bin Salman incubator and when I got accepted, it opened up a network of entrepreneurs. I found people who are passionate about building something. I found investors.”

Their company, Gathern, was using that Airbnb business model, still brand new in Saudi Arabia. 

“Our first customer was [co-founder] Eman’s mother,” Latifah says, laughing. “She was easy to acquire. But the second was very difficult.” Once they did, Latifah and Eman changed the market. Gathern was the first to receive a license from the Ministry of Tourism. Strategically positioned to serve the domestic tourism industry, Gathern now has a 44% market share in short term rentals Saudi tourism. 

The company tapped into a wealth of unused properties across the region, providing alternative accommodations beyond expensive hotels and offering access to previously inaccessible destinations, such as al-Ula, an ancient Arabian city and UNESCO heritage site, where Gathern increased available rooms from less than 100 to over 800 within just 12 months. Customer loyalty is evident: over 5 million users have booked stays through the platform, welcoming guests from more than 150 nationalities. 

Since becoming profitable in 2023, Gathern has facilitated over $2 billion in gross booking value (the total worth of all stays booked through its platform).

By the time Endeavor and Latifah crossed paths, Gathern had become a Saudi juggernaut. “When Gathern launched in 2017, they were a category creator in Saudi Arabia,” explains Carlos Romero Jantacomma, Senior Associate for Endeavor’s Entrepreneur Selection. “There was no such thing as peer-to-peer or short-term rentals. Gathern became a local hero, made for people on the ground.”

Local, not small

When Endeavor reached out to Latifah to invite her into the selection journey, Latifah was ready, particularly for support in networking.

Latifah grew up during a complicated time for women in Saudi Arabia. Up until 2018, women were not allowed to drive. Female founders were few and far between. Now things are changing, as the story of Lateefa Alwaalan, founder of Yatooq and Managing Director of Endeavor Saudi Arabia, shows.

Latifah herself holds a balanced perspective of her own place as a woman in the industry. “I get some opportunities because I’m a woman, and I miss some opportunities. There are advantages and disadvantages. In the end, nature – and business – doesn’t care. Nature doesn’t care if you’re a woman or a man, or tall or short, or Saudi or not. If you have the recipe, you’ll get the result.”

At Endeavor, we often look for inflection points – a moment where a strong and successful company needs our support. Expanding core business operations will require investor capital and strategy. As Gathern has grown into a local behemoth, it was also beginning to reach peak saturation of the Saudi market, meaning that it’s an important time to find new revenue streams and customers. Gathern had reached that inflection point.

During her International Selection Panel—the final evaluative stage of Endeavor’s selection journey, where entrepreneurs interview with Endeavor’s top mentors and entrepreneurs—Latifah impressed with the strategic, careful manner that she’s now leading her company to look further afield.

Moving out of Gathern’s home market will be a new frontier for the Saudi company, and Endeavor can help Latifah and her team connect with people in markets including Kuwait and Bahrain among others, opening the door to understanding local regulations, insights for customer bases, and providing the points of connection Gathern needs. 

During Latifah’s selection process to become an Endeavor Entrepreneur, one mentor pointed out that Gathern’s marketing budget needed a more strategic approach. At Latifah’s request, we connected her with Salim Majzoub, Chief Marketing Officer at Veyron KSA, to refine Gathernʼs marketing strategy.

“Gathern proves definitively that you can build a business in Saudi Arabia and stay in Saudi Arabia,” said Carlos. “Conventional wisdom expects you to make your company as western or American as possible because that’s what investors want to see, but Gathern is unapologetically a local hero [invested in Saudi values and staying in Saudi Arabia even as they expand overseas]. And it’s an important example for entrepreneurs that taking that position bears fruit, loyalty, and trust. Now it’s clear that in the next stage of growth, they’re ready to press the pedal on the metal.”

A new trailblazer

When we’re selecting Endeavor Entrepreneurs, we look for a quality we call the Endeavor Multiplier Effect™ where the work we do with entrepreneurs is paid forward by inspiring, mentoring, and investing in the next generation of founders. Looking at Latifah, who created a new industry in her home country and became an incredibly successful founder even as one of Saudi Arabia’s only female entrepreneurs, it’s clear that inspiration is an inherent part of her identity.

“Latifah is a true leader,” said Ibrahem Alsuhaibani, former COO of Domino’s Pizza MENAP, who was one of the panelists on Latifah’s LSP (Local Selection Panel). “She knows exactly what she wants to do and achieve. She is calm and done a lot in the past few years. Her understanding of the business and the market is outstanding.”

“She’s an outstanding founder no matter her gender,” said Nora al-Khamis, from Endeavor Saudi Arabia.

Latifah herself is thinking back on how her own view of Saudi Arabia has evolved.

“We’ve had a lot of entrepreneurs here in Saudi for a very long time,” says Latifah. “They’ve built giant ventures. But what’s special about Silicon Valley is that [entrepreneurs there] share their stories, they write books, they do interviews, they offer details on their challenges, their dreams, their opportunities.”

It’s not, in other words, a talent or opportunity issue; it’s a visibility issue. Latifah, and founders like her, are changing that, as they build strong businesses based in Saudi Arabia and make an impression with their success overseas. They’re offering local entrepreneurs everywhere the chance to go big and go home.